1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to organizers for storing cards, sheets and the like, and more particularly to a home organizer for storing monthly receipts and constituted by a two-ply panel, the front ply being adapted to store monthly receipts for the first six months of a given year, the rear ply being reserved for receipts for the last six months.
2. Status of Prior Art
The typical householder receives bills every month of the year from diverse sources, such as telephone and utility bills, mortgage payment bills and bills from credit card companies. These monthly bills are accompanied by a receipt which is filled out by the householder to indicate when a payment is made and its amount, the receipt being retained by the householder as his record of payment.
It is important for the householder to store these receipts so that he can keep track of all payments for income tax and other purposes. This is not an easy matter; for in the course of each year the householder will normally accumulate a large volume of receipts for various services rendered. Should the householder simply dump these monthly receipts in a storage box, a not uncommon practice, it becomes difficult for him to retrieve a particular receipt from the unassorted pile thereof. Thus if a question arose as to whether a payment had been made to the telephone company in July, the householder would then have to rifle through the pile to retrieve the appropriate receipt. And if the householder wishes to total his respective payments for the year for telephone, utility and other services, he must then sort out the various receipts.
A better organized way of storing receipts is to place all monthly receipts from one source, such as the telephone company, in a letter folder; those from another source, say, an electric utility, in a separate folder, and so on. But this practice also has distinct drawbacks; for loose receipts in a letter folder can fall out and be lost. Moreover, when looking for a receipt for a particular month, one has to search for this receipt among those in the folder.
A more efficient way of storing receipts is to use a multi-pocket accordian folder in which telephone receipts go in one pocket, electric utility receipts in another, etc. However, these stored receipts pile up at the bottom of the pockets and are not easily retrieved.
It is not enough to just store receipts accumulated over a year period, for it may become necessary to consult these receipts years later. Hence the need exists not only for an organizer capable of storing monthly receipts accumulated over a given year, but one which also lends itself to long term storage.
Various attempts have heretofore been made to provide organizers for storing cards, papers and other documents in a manner that facilitates reference to the stored documents and makes it easier to retrieve them when necessary. Thus the patent to Bell, U.S. Pat. No. 4,055,008, shows a book for storing monthly bank checks, each page of which is provided with several open pockets to store the checks; the checks for January being held in one pocket, those for February in another, etc. The Dubois patent U.S. Pat. No. 3,073,050 discloses a holder for index cards having V-shaped cutouts to receive the cards. Mazur, U.S. Pat. No. 2,959,879, provides a visible file having an array of cutouts for storing cards, while Williams, U.S. Pat. No. 4,571,876, provides a file having columns of parallel slits in a V-formation to receive memo cards. But none of these patents discloses a filing device specifically adapted to store monthly receipts in an organized manner.